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Heat treatment method and heat treatment apparatus for managing dummy wafer

a treatment method and heat treatment technology, applied in electrical equipment, basic electric elements, testing/measurement of semiconductor/solid-state devices, etc., can solve problems such as contamination in the chamber, cracking and warpage prone to occur in the dummy wafer, and temperature history differences, so as to prevent erroneous treatment

Active Publication Date: 2021-06-01
DAINIPPON SCREEN MTG CO LTD
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  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The patent describes a method and apparatus for managing the deterioration of dummy wafers to prevent errors in treating them. This prevents the incorrect treatment of wafers that are in advanced stages of deterioration. The technical effect of this invention is to prevent errors in treating dummy wafers, ensuring reliable and accurate results.

Problems solved by technology

Unfortunately, the temperature of in-chamber structures (structures in a chamber) including a susceptor for holding a semiconductor wafer and the like changes in some cases in the course of the sequential processing or treatment of semiconductor wafers in a lot.
Changes in temperature of the in-chamber structures including the susceptor and the like in the course of the treatment of semiconductor wafers in a lot give rise to a problem that there arises a difference in temperature history during the treatment between initial semiconductor wafers and latter semiconductor wafers in the lot.
As a result, deterioration of the dummy wafers proceeds to accordingly make cracking and warpage prone to occur in the dummy wafers.
The occurrence of cracking and warpage in the dummy wafers during the dummy running causes contamination in the chamber and transport trouble.
In conventional techniques, however, the deterioration condition has not sufficiently been grasped because an operator views or writes on paper the treatment history of the dummy wafers to manage the treatment history.
This has resulted in a problem that a dummy wafer suffering excessively advanced deterioration is accidentally transported and subjected to heating treatment.

Method used

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  • Heat treatment method and heat treatment apparatus for managing dummy wafer
  • Heat treatment method and heat treatment apparatus for managing dummy wafer
  • Heat treatment method and heat treatment apparatus for managing dummy wafer

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first preferred embodiment

[0034]First, a heat treatment apparatus according to the present invention will be described. FIG. 1 is a plan view of a heat treatment apparatus 100 according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a front view of the heat treatment apparatus 100. The heat treatment apparatus 100 is a flash lamp annealer for irradiating a disk-shaped semiconductor wafer W serving as a substrate with flashes of light to heat the semiconductor wafer W. The size of the semiconductor wafer W to be treated is not particularly limited. For example, the semiconductor wafer W to be treated has a diameter of 300 mm and 450 mm. The semiconductor wafer W prior to the transport into the heat treatment apparatus 100 is implanted with impurities. The heat treatment apparatus 100 performs heating treatment on the semiconductor wafer W to thereby activate the impurities implanted in the semiconductor wafer W. It should be noted that the dimensions of components and the number of components are shown in exaggerati...

second preferred embodiment

[0120]Next, a second preferred embodiment according to the present invention will be described. The second preferred embodiment is similar in configuration of the heat treatment apparatus 100 and in procedure for treatment of the semiconductor wafer W to the first preferred embodiment. The second preferred embodiment is different from the first preferred embodiment in management form of the dummy wafer.

[0121]FIG. 12 is a flow diagram showing a procedure for management of the dummy wafer according to a second preferred embodiment of the present invention, in the second preferred embodiment, the carrier C (dummy carrier) storing dummy wafers therein is placed on the load port 110 of the indexer part 101, and an operator of the heat treatment apparatus 100 provides an instruction from the input part 33 to start the treatment for the dummy running (Step S21). Upon receiving the instruction to start the treatment, the controller 3 extracts the number of times of the preheating performed ...

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Abstract

Dummy running is carried out which performs preheating treatment using halogen lamps and flash heating treatment using flash lamps on a dummy wafer to control the temperature of in-chamber structures including a susceptor and the like. In this process, a preheating counter or a flash heating counter is incremented each time the preheating treatment or the flash heating treatment is performed. An alarm is issued, if the preheating counter or the flash heating counter that is a wear-and-tear value of the dummy wafer is not less than a predetermined threshold value. This allows an operator of a heat treatment apparatus to recognize that the deterioration of the dummy wafer reaches a limit value, thereby preventing the erroneous treatment of a dummy wafer suffering advanced deterioration.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONField of the Invention[0001]The present invention relates to a heat treatment method and a treatment apparatus which manage dummy wafers.Description of the Background Art[0002]In the process of manufacturing a semiconductor device, attention has been given to flash lamp annealing (FLA) which heats a semiconductor wafer in an extremely short time. The flash lamp annealing is a heat treatment technique in which xenon flash lamps (the term “flash lamp” as used hereinafter refers to a “xenon flash lamp”) are used to irradiate a surface of a semiconductor wafer with a flash of light, thereby raising the temperature of only the surface of the semiconductor wafer in an extremely short time (several milliseconds or less).[0003]The xenon, flash lamps have a spectral distribution of radiation ranging from ultraviolet to near-infrared regions. The wavelength of light emitted from the xenon flash lamps is shorter than that of light emitted from conventional halogen la...

Claims

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Application Information

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Patent Type & Authority Patents(United States)
IPC IPC(8): H01L21/66H01L21/67
CPCH01L21/67115H01L21/67288H01L22/12H01L21/324H01L21/477H01L21/67098H01L21/67253H01L21/6875H01L21/68707H01L21/67742
Inventor UENO, TOMOHIROFUSE, KAZUHIKOOMORI, MAO
Owner DAINIPPON SCREEN MTG CO LTD